1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a screen control apparatus which accepts voice instructions for processing a graphic displayed on a screen and performs the processing on the screen according to the voice instructions, more particularly relates to a screen control apparatus which designates the amount of the processing in accordance with the length of a certain phoneme in the voice instruction.
2. Description of the Related Art
Direct voice instruction of the operation of various types of apparatuses enables easy and efficient operation of the apparatuses and leads to a remarkable improvement in human interfacing. Recent progress in voice recognition technology has led to the proposal of several methods for controlling apparatuses by voice. For example, methods for voice execution of processing such as movement, enlargement, reduction, and/or rotation on a displayed object on the screen of a workstation or personal computer have been proposed.
In those methods, the following processing is carried out; recognition of a word indicating a certain processing enunciated by an operator toward a voice inputting means, for example, a microphone connected to a workstation, determination of the processing corresponding to the recognized word by reference to a previously defined table of correspondence between certain words and processing, and execution of the processing on the screen. In other words, the method consists of recognizing the inputted voice as a command and executing the processing as processing the same as with a command ordinarily inputted from a keyboard or other means to control the screen.
The existing methods of screen control by voice instructions carry out a fixed amount of movement, enlargement, reduction, and/or rotation of a displayed object with a single command, so it is impossible to move a displayed object by exactly a desired distance, to enlarge or reduce it by exactly a desired magnification, or to rotate it by exactly a desired angle by a single operation. To execute such a desired amount of processing, it is necessary to perform separate additional operations, such as inputting a number with a keyboard, enunciating a number to be recognized, or inputting instructions for the start and the end of the processing. Since such operations are as cumbersome as the ordinary graphic operations using a keyboard or other means, it is hard to say that these apparatuses provide good human interfacing taking full advantage of the convenience of voice commands.